Search engines: word searching

Doing word searches on the internet

Most search engines allow you to type in a few words, it then searches for occurrences of those words in its database. Each search engine has its own way of deciding what to do about approximate spellings, plural variations, and truncation. If you use the "basic search" interface you will receive a list of sites that contain the word you typed in.

You can combine search types 
Type in subject specific words and combine them with the ampersand (&), the plus sign (+), or surround two words or a phrase with inch marks " "  ---See examples below:

genealogy & swiss

switzerland +genealogy +studer

"swiss genealogy"

Quotes around a phrase, cause that phrase to be searched for exactly. Individual words are not searched for separately. Check the search engine's help file to verify this details. A lot of things change on the internet and these instructions may be outdated.

Use a search engines advanced search form 
You can be even more specific, forming Boolean logic searches. Use logical operators between words like AND, OR, and NOT. 

Truncation, Pluralization & Capitalization 
Most engines interpret lower case as unspecified, but upper case will match only upper case. (There are some exceptions.) Note this interpretation example: Macintosh, Mac, Macintoshes, Macs, macintosh, macintoshes, mac, macs, could all yield different search results. There is no standard at all for truncation, and worse yet, the general search mode is probably different from the advanced search mode, for every engine.

Research links.   european  --  sites/links  --  tips/how-to's  --  vital records  --  blank forms/charts